Well, it's been a week and I haven't done anything about my oven yet. I need to dig out my warranty and call GE. Even if the part I broke isn't covered they can at least tell me if the ignitor is the right part that I need to get. In the mean time, Cassandra from Tripping around the Sun told me that I could get a timer, like the ones that you'd use for Christmas lights, to put on my crock pot so that my food doesn't over cook. What a great way to make your own smart pot! I bought one for $5 from Walmart and I put two crock pot meals on the menu this week. Friday's menu is one I need to put in the oven, but I think it will fit in one of my smaller casserole dishes and I can throw it in the big 'ol toaster oven. Have I mentioned I love my toaster oven. Well I do. Just thought I'd announce that. On to the menu.

 

Monday
Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup

Tuesday
Easy Slow Cooker French Dip
Tater Tots

Wednesday
2nd chance Meals

Thursday
Slow Cooker Chicken Dinner

Friday
Chicken & Spinach Pasta Bake

For more weekly menus, check out the Organizing Junkie.

Happy Sew Crafty Friday. I got the socks done last week but was unable to post. They have already been given to their happy recipient, but I took some pics before I gave 'em away. Here they are finished.

The stripes don't line up perfectly, but I'm still pretty happy with them. That was the only picture I got of them on the floor because I had helpers. Here's Katie showing us that...

 

...these socks are not one size fits all.

"Mommy, take a picture of me!" Can you tell we had eggs for breakfast? Egg yokes really bring out the blue in her eyes, dontcha think?

Okay, back to the socks. Here's what they look like on. Those are my feet. I cleaned 'em first. Luckily my friend doesn't mind that we all tried on her socks.

 

I'm still working on the red blanket but my hook went missing. That happens alot. Kids can find all kinds of imaginative things to do with crochet hooks, so there isn't anything to post on that project.

Here's my surprise project. I'm knitting. I starting teaching myself to knit a few years ago but always put it down in favor of the much faster (for me anyway) crocheting. Since I've been posting on Sew Crafty Friday I've found myself inspired by one the other participants. PuritySeekers makes some beautiful stuff (and you can win some of it by entering the contest on her site) which she sells on her etsy shop. One of the things I've loved the most is the knit longies she makes. Because I'm a big ol' copycat I seached and found this pattern at knitty.com. Beware, the baby on that page will make you want one! Here's the pic:

I'm doing a couple of things different on this pattern. First of all, I didn't want to buy two sets of needles, a circular and a set of dpns, so I learned to do the magic loop on the circular needles. I learned how to do it from a couple of videos on youtube.com. Here's one of the videos I learned from. Do a search for "magic loop" on you tube if you want to find more.

 

That's it for now. If you want to see more crafts head over to Shereen's site for Sew Crafty Friday.

Since I broke my oven this weekend everything will have to be made using the stovetop and toaster oven. I have a crockpot but since we are away from the home about 10 hours everything burns. It's my bedtime now so here's the menu:

Monday
Orance flavored chicken
White rice

Tuesday
Grilled Cheese sandwiches
Tomato Soup

Wednesday
Thai Curry Chicken
Sushi Rice

Thursday
Leftover Buffet

Friday
Take out

For more weekly menus check out the Organizing Junkie. Night!

PS Since I didn't get to do Sew Crafty Friday this week, take a look at the socks I finished on my loom. Too cute! I'll try to talk about them this Friday.

I had every intention of posting the past few days, and even started my Sew Crafty Friday this morning but there is just too much going on. Nothing bad, well besides I broke my oven and the icky rash came back. I broke my oven because I'm a dummy and put room temp water in a hot class dish. The explosion that occurred didn't break the oven though. When we were cleaning the oven I told hubby that some of the glass got under the metal piece that was blocking the heating element so he took metal piece off let me clean it. That didn't break the oven either. When I got the big pieces of glass out of the oven I wanted to vacuum the little shards so hubby did it for me and barely hit the ignitor on the oven. That broke the oven. Or it at least broke off that piece and I'm scared to try my oven. I'm not quite sure what we are going to do about it.

The other thing that is going on is that the itching is back. You may remember this picture from an earlier post.

Well, the bumps are back with a vengence. Last week they were all over my arms, legs, back and face. Everywhere I put sunscreen two days before. I didn't take pictures this time. I think my mother in law (hi Mom!) was hoping I would. She told me that when she couldn't find any good pictures of people with leporacy so she took this one in to show her Sunday School kids. LOL. My doctor thinks this may be an allergic reaction to my sunscreen. He sent me home with some samples to self test but the bumps haven't gone away enough for me to try. So for now I just itch.

That's the update for now. Look forward to an interesting menu tomorrow with my broken oven. Night.

 

Welcome back to Sew Crafty Friday. Last week I showed off the first couple rows of the blindingly red baby blanket. This week I'm proud to present the over half done but still blindingly red baby blanket. I just started skein number 4 out of 5. Hopefully I bought enough yarn, but I think I'm going to wish I had got one more skein. The pattern is by Red Heart and it's called Crochet Baby Ripple.

Since I don't know any one legged people I have also started the mate to the schooners socks. I'm trying to keep my tension even so the stripes line up with the first sock. So far it looks good. I could try counting all the rows to make sure they both match but who really wants to do that? Not me.

My kids have been on a roll lately with some of the funny things they say and do. I thought I'd share some of them here.

My son and I were leaving the library and getting into the car. I asked him to please get in on his side of the car, so of course he ran to his sister's side to get in. The following conversation happened:

Me: "Connor, what did I ask you to do?"
Him: "To get in on my side of the car."
Me: "And did you do that."
Him: "No."
Me: "Connor, do you know, that when I ask you to do something it's not to be mean, but because I want to keep you safe. What if I was asking you to get in on your side of the car because there was a snake on Katie's side of the car?"
Him: "There was a snake?"
Me: "No, but what if there was?"
Him: "And it was going to bite me?"
Me: "Yes, if there was a snake he could have bit you."
Him: "But I didn't see a snake."
Me: "There wasn't one, but what if there was one."
Him: "He was going to bite me. Where was he?"
Me: "Nevermind. Forget I said it."
After a few moments of silence I quietly hear from the backseat, "Man, why is there always snakes?"

The other day I was resting on the couch while the rest of my family was upstairs. My daughter had been in her room and must have put on one of her dresses because I heard my husband exclaim, "Oh you look so pretty! Go show Mommy and ask her if you look pretty." My daughter stood at the top of the stairs and yelled, "MOMMY! I'M PRETTY!" I guess she didn't need any validation from me!

Last weekend my lovely sister in law had my children over to spend the night at her home. In the morning she asked Connor to go let his uncle know that he could get in the shower and she'd have pancakes ready when he was done. My son went up stairs and told his uncle, "You better get in the shower or your not getting any pancakes!"

Last one, this one happened yesterday. My son asked if he could stay with me and watch TV. I told him it was alright as long as he sat on the couch quietly because Mommy had a headache and loud noises made Mommy hurt. This happened:

Him: "Mommy, I'm sorry I gave you a headache."
Me: "I'm okay honey. You didn't give me a headache."
Him: "Oh. Okay. I'm sorry Katie gave you a headache then."

it's another fun filled Menu Plan Monday. Woo Hoo! Last week I was MIA. I cooked a whole bunch of food for my son's birthday party and when the weather started to look stormy we canceled it. He was sad but we still had my mom and Pat's mom over, plus Pat's sister and her family stopped by to drop off a gift for him. However, that wasn't enough to plow thru the cowboy beans, fresh corn casserole, bacon wrapped jalepeno thingys, chicken wings and turkey roll ups, so we ate them all week long.

For the past few weeks I've been coveting Candi's diet menu. It sounds so tasty! It also made me want to go to Trader Joe's, which I did tonight. One of the things she is munching on is celery sticks or carrot sticks with almond butter. I know that Trader Joe's has almond butter so I went there to stare at it. LOL. I didn't buy it but I got several other things for my menu this week, like the Orange Flavored Chicken was in the Freezer section and the Fettucini noodles were bought there too. BTW, Candi is doing her diet thru www.perfectweightamerica.com. I signed up there too but don't expect to see any diet recipes up anytime soon, I have freezer meals to finish off. LOL. Here's the menu:

MONDAY
Fettucini Alfredo
Salad
Cheese toast

TUESDAY
Green Chicken Enchiladas
Spanish Rice
Refried Beans

WEDNESDAY
2nd Chance Meals

THURSDAY
Orange Flavored Chicken
Sushi Rice

FRIDAY
Crispy Baked Chicken
Mashed Potatos & Gravy
Cream Corn

For more menus check out the Organized Junkie.

Hooray! I finished a sock! I bought my sock loom about six months ago, and although I love working on it, I always ended up ripping out the socks I started. When I see a mistake I really want to fix it, and I don't know how to fix something on my looms, so out it goes. This is the first sock pattern I've found that hides my mistakes pretty well. Here's a picture of the finished project:

I love the colors. Now, here's a couple of me modeling it:

And, once again, a close up of the work:

I'm very pleased with how it came out, and so far have gotten a lot of rave reviews from the people I've shown it to. Some of them are even hand knitters! My kitchener's stitch was a litte wonky but I'm sure I'll learn, I have a lot more sock yarn to work up. Darn those sales.

Speaking of sales, here is another project I'm working on, I like to have two going:

It's the same kind of yarn that I used for the baby blanket I posted before, but a different color, of course. The baby clouds yarn is about $4 a skein where I buy it. This Bright & Lofty stuff was found on Smiley's yarn for only $1 a skein. You can find all kinds of discounted yarn there, but you have to buy at least $40 at time plus $12 shipping and handling. I ended up buying 25 skeins of this stuff, 5 of every color they had in stock. I was going to loom it all into blankets but I had a hard time picturing this red (color: jellybean) as a loomed blanket so I decied to crochet it using this pattern. I took this picture 2 days ago and It's actually about a fifth done now. I can't believe how fast this works up. I also bought 8 skeins of color waves for a future project. Just thought I'd throw that in case you were like, "Hey, 25 skeins at a dollar each is only $25 dollars, what else did you get!" Or am I the only one that does that?

I'm off to start another sock and work on a blanket. For more "Sew Crafty Fridays" visit Sharleen's blog.

For more Wordless Wednesdays go here.

Welcome to another edition of Sew Crafty Friday. Last week I put my daughter in her new dress I crocheted for her and we went to the park for a photo shoot. I washed her clean, blew her hair dry and was hoping for something sweet and girly. Instead, I got action shots. Hubby took these photos:

First, Katie ran away over here.

When Daddy caught on to her shenanigans she ran away over here.

In this shot I think she has decided to try and fly away from intrusive camera. Doesn't she look like Superman about to take off?

Still not a good shot of the dress, but hey, she's not running anymore.

Yes, I'm talking about you.

Oops! Spoke too soon, there she goes.

Well, with all that running we did manage to get one good shot of her in the dress. She looks miserable but the dress is nice. If you're interested in this pattern check out the Crochet Garden. The directions on this pattern are super easy to follow and there are NO seams.

Aside from chasing my daughter I've found some time to work on a new project. It's actually an old project that I frogged and started over.

This is my sock loom from DA Looms.

On it is the leg and heel part of one sock. I'm using Opal yarn in the "Crazy" line. I don't have the label so I can't recall what shade or number it is. I do know that yarn is from Germany and I like to smell it. I tried to get a picture of the heel but until I get a little more of the foot done it is too hard to see. Instead, take a gander at this close up of the stitches.

Pretty cool, huh?

That's it for tonight. Thanks for stopping by! But before you go, if you have a blog where you post your crafts, leave a comment, I'd love to take look!

For more Wordless Wednesdays go here.

First of all, I'd like to apologize to anyone who visited me last week from the Organizing Junkie and was directed to "Sew Crafty Friday" instead of "Menu Plan Mondays." We have not become desperate enough that we are eating yarn, I just wasn't careful when putting my link in Mr. Linky. If you are here this week then I did a much better job. I'd like to point out that you didn't miss much last week as somewhere about Monday I fell of the Menu Plan band wagon and my plan looks pretty similar to last week. I've planned the Chicken, Spinach & Pasta Bake three weeks in a row and just kept forgetting to take it out my freezer. I made sure I got it out tonight since I'm doing my grocery shopping after work I'll need a quick dinner. Since I missed "Sew Crafty Friday" this week I'll put a little sneak preview of what I'm working on now after this menu:

MONDAY
Chicken, Spinach, and Pasta Bake
Cheese Toast

TUESDAY
Green Chicken Enchiladas
Spanish Rice
Beans

WEDNESDAY
2nd Chance Meals

THURSDAY
Tortillini in Alfredo
Salad

FRIDAY
Kielbasa & Cabbage

BONUS: I'm also cooking for a potluck at work this week so I'm making Baked French toast on Wednesday. With any luck I'll have a recipe up this week with a photo, but my track record lately isn't so good, so we'll see.

**Sneak Peak:

I'm not much of a knitter. I've been crocheting so long that anytime I've tried to knit I give up because crocheting just comes more natural to me. Luckily there are knitting looms and knitting boards. The above picture is of a sock on my sock loom. I've restarted that sock at least 5 times, including this weekend. I wanted there to be a pattern to this sock and was having a hard time keeping track of where I was in the pattern every time I set it down. This week, a new issue of "Loom Knitters Circle Magazine" came out and Isela posted a new sock pattern. This one is super easy so far and I've done 2 1/2 inches of the leg part done, I only started it Friday. Hopefully I'll get the heel done by Friday and I'll post more pics. There will also be some pics of my daughter in the new dress I made her. Too Cute!

It's 8pm and I still have to do my shopping and return a video by 9pm, so real quick, here's my menu. If you want to see more menus visit Laura (hopefully, if she's back from vacation) at Organized Junkie.

MONDAY
Hamburgers
Tater Tots

TUESDAY
Grilled Swiss cheese sandwiches
Tomato Basil soup

WEDNESDAY
Chicken, Spinach, and Pasta Bake (I made up the recipe and froze it last week but we didn't get to eat it)
Cheese Toast

THURSDAY
Green Chicken Enchiladas (in triplicate for the freezer)
Spanish Rice
Beans

FRIDAY
2nd chance Meals

Happy 4th of July and welcome to my second post for Sew Crafty Friday!

Last week I posted two little dresses I was working on and they are both near finished. I hope to take pictures of my daughter in the white dress so I'll post about it next week. But here is the green dress:

It would have been done today but for some reason I couldn't find my sewing needles so the snaps in the back haven't been sewn on. After the pictures I took last week I happened to leave this within reach of my two year old who thinks this dress is pretty. She got her hands on it and with them some red substance which I believe to be spaghetti sauce. I pretreated it with Spray N Wash and it came out clean from the laundry. Whew!

I think I have decided to start an etsy shop and this will be my first product. I've always wanted to try and sell something online and here's my chance. This is the back:

This second project has been finished for awhile but I never posted it here. It's a baby blanket that I made on the long blue knifty knitter loom. Here's the pic:

The pattern was found at on the Yahoo Group Knifty Knitter Looms. This is a great place to go to if your new and want to ask questions, or if you're experienced and want to get ideas. I love looming because I can keep my hands busy without really having to think about what I'm doing. This blanket is as soft and fluffy as it looks. The yarn is Red Heart baby clouds and its really chunky. It was $4 dollars a skein at Michael's so the blanket cost about $16 to make (if you don't include the price of the loom.) Red Heart also makes this yarn in regular colors under the names Light N Lofty and Bright N Lofty. The Bright N Lofty is a bit bold but you can find it for a dollar a skein at Smiley's Yarns. I just bought a HUGE box of the stuff in bright pink, varigated red, varigated black, and purple to make it into blankets. I'm going to probably start one this week.

That's all for tonight. Thanks for looking!

These beans are delicious and absolutely no cowboys were harmed in the making of them.

1 lg & 1 sm can Bush's Original Baked Beans

1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, undrained

1/2 cup ketchup

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 pound lean ground beef

4 ounces bacon, chopped (I just used the kind in the bag in the salad dressing eisle)

1/2 cup chopped onion

4 teaspoons Vidalia Onion dressing

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, or you can use a Crockpot. In a large skillet over medium heat fry the ground beef, bacon and onion together until ground beef is no longer pink. Drain the fat. In a large bowl combine the beans, ketchup, brown sugar, vidalia onion dressing and the beef mixture. Mix throughly. Pour the bean and meat mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish and bake in a preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Or, if you want to use the crockpot, put bean and beef mixture in crockpot and set on low four hours.

This week's "Menu Plan Monday" is being hosted by Heavenly Homemakers because Laura thinks she gets to take a vacation. The nerve (just kidding Laura!)

I thought I'd take a little vacation from my normal routine today and took the family to see "Kung Fu Panda." I liked it...from what I got to see. Answer me this. How can one little 2 year old girl be so troublesome and cute at the same time? I got a soda lid crammed in my face, popcorn shoved up my nose, she kicked the lady's chair in front of her, stood up in her own chair to see the people behind her, yelled, "Get me out of here!" when I tried to keep her in her seat, then cried that she wanted to see the movie when I took her out of the theater. What's worse is I'll probably do it all again next week because I want to see Wall-E. Gluten for punishment I am.

The pork chops on the menu last week were good. I can't remember if I took pictures of it or not, but if I did I'll try to get the recipe up soon. I did take pictures of the cowboy beans so I'll put that recipe up for sure this week. My recipe section looks very bare so I need to get more up.

This week isn't all that exciting. Tomorrow's meal is the one I'm most looking forward too. I think I'm going to like the mixture of Alfredo and Spaghetti Sauce. While at Target I bought a box of Glad Ovenware so I thought I would a couple extra batches of the ever yummy "Chicken and Spinach Pasta Bake" and freeze them for future menus. The Ovenware is like kinda like the Gladware but it can go straight from the Freezer into the oven as long as it isn't over 400 degrees. We'll see how they hold up. On to the menu:

Monday
Red and White Tortellini (we didn't get to it last week)
Five Cheese Toast

Tuesday
Kielbasa with Peppers and onions

Wednesday
2nd chance meals

Thursday
Chicken and Spinach Pasta Bake

Friday
Hamburgers (winder farms)
Baked Beans
Salad

OH! I also see doing this on a future menu. Good night!

One of the reasons I wanted a blog was so that I could show off my crocheting and other crafts. Since I've been so lazy about posting crafts I've decided to join the Mr. Linky at Waiting for Him called Sew Crafty Friday. If I make it a habit to join every week then I have to get off my kiester and actually take some pics right?

The first dress is made out of yarn I had hanging around. I think the green skein was Bernet Coordinates, but I don't know what the white stuff is. I didn't make it with anyone in mind, I just wanted a project to use up some stash and this is what I found. I think it's coming out pretty cute. I still need to hide ends, put some buttons on it, put the ribbon in, and I want to put some extra embellishments on the yoke. The dress is made according to the "9-12 months" size and the pattern is a free one from Red Heart called "Sweetie Pie." You can download it here.

The second dress is being made for my daughter. I got the pattern (Seaside Fairy Sundress) from the always amazing Crochet Garden. It's being made out of Aunt Lydia's size three crochet cotton thread from Walmart. The dress is turning out adorable! I have no idea where Katie is going to wear it and not get it completely dirty. The good news is, it feels like it will hold up really well in the wash. I'm considering taking her to the Botanical Gardens at the Bellagio and getting some good shots of my little doll in her dress. Unfortunately she likes to try to pick the flowers when we are there and unfortunately, the Bellagio doesn't like that.

Here's a link to the original pattern so you can see what it'll look like when it's done, or buy the pattern for yourself.

Thanks for checking me out!

Candi at "ALL DAY ALL NIGHT" tagged me for a meme. This is my first meme. WooHoo! Here's the rules:

This meme originated over an idea that was prompted by the book written by Larry Smith & Rachel Fershleiser, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure. It’s a compilation based on the story that Hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. His words were, “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.”

1. Write your own six word memoir.

2. Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like.

3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blog sphere.

Sarah's Link is here.

4. Tag 5 more blogs with links.

5. Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Here's Mine:

Ice is slippery, protect your knees.

If you missed the post about this a year and a half ago, or haven't heard me complain about it for the past year and a half, read about it here.

As far as tagging other bloggers with this meme, I don't really e-mail many bloggers. So, here's what I'll do, if you come here and you want to do this meme, let me know and I'll link you.

My husband and I are pretty conservative. We both have government jobs. Neither of us drink, smoke, or gamble (even though we live in Vegas.) We are home in the evenings and in bed at a decent hour. As parents we try to teach our children manners and values. However... every now and then... we need to break out... or we get bored... and sometimes... on rare occasions... this may happen:

My kids keep me endlessly entertained with the things they say. The other day my husband and I were getting ready for work. He was standing at the fridge filling up his water bottles and my little 2 year old daughter came over holding her sippy and looked up at him. Hubby asked if she wanted him to fill up her sippy so she held it out and informed him, "I busy" then walked away. I had no idea that two years olds had so much to do. Maybe she was too busy doing this: